The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 There were several elements of the
“Mesoamerican civilization.”
 Despite different languages, religious
rituals, cultural elements, and mythological
elements were common to most peoples of
Mesoamerica.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The Calendar:
 Foremost among these common elements
was the use of a complex ritual calendar.
 Among the Aztecs (and earlier Maya and
Toltecs) priests marked the passing of time
and predicted the future with two calendars,
one a solar count of 365 days linked to the
passing seasons, another a ritual calendar
of 260 days, thought to be based on the
length of a human pregnancy.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The two calendars combined to make a
longer measure.
 The period needed for a particular day in
the 365 calendar and the 260-day
calendar to coincide was 18,980 days, or
52 365-day years.
 This measure, called a “bundle of years”
by the Aztecs, was given great
significance.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The end of each 52 year period was seen
as a moment of great danger, at which
the gods might end the world.
 This preoccupation with measuring and
recording time went far back into
Mesoamerican history—the earliest
surviving writing from the region was a
Zapotec calendrical note from approx
600 BCE.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Blood Sacrifice:
 Another important element of
Mesoamerican civilization—at least as far
back as the Olmecs (about 1200 BCE) was
the use of blood sacrifice to honor and win
the good will of the gods.
 Among the Aztecs, long lines of prisoners
of war were paraded up steep temple
pyramids to be sacrificed by having their
hearts ripped from their chests.
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 The Maya of the
Classic Period
(250CE-900CE) most
commonly beheaded
their victims.
 Both Maya and Aztec
worshippers also
offered their own
blood to the gods.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Women and men drew blood from
wounds in their cheeks, ears, arms and
legs, while men also made cuts on their
private parts.
 The Mesoamericans worshipped a vast
pantheon of gods and goddesses in the
course of their civilization.
 These deities often had alternative
names and animal or human twin forms.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The cult of one god
in particular was
enduringly popular
across centuries and
cultures: the
feathered serpent
Quetzalcoatl (known
to the Maya as
Kukulcan).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
Quetzalcoatl was
associated with
wise leadership and
was revered as a
creator, a wind god,
and as the morning
star.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 In myth, he was said to have departed
by sea on a raft of snakes, promising to
return.
 It is a popular theory that some among
the Aztecs may have interpreted the
coming of Hernan Cortes and his Spanish
troops in 1519 as the promised return of
Quetzalcoatl from exile.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Ball Games:
 Another basic element of Mesoamerican
civilization was a ball game played on a
court shaped like a capital “I.”
 The court, which formed part of the
ritual complex in cities, had sloping or
vertical side walls.
 The object appears to have been to get a
rubber ball into the end sections (like
‘endzones.”
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 An Aztec ball court.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Some courts had rings high on the side
walls and extra points might have been
scored by getting the ball through the
hoop.
 This would have been very difficult since
the players could not direct the ball with
their feet or hands…only their hips,
elbows, and knees.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The game seems to have been understood
as a reenactment of cosmic struggles.
 To the Aztecs, it was the clash between
light and dark, between Quetzalcoatl and
his dark brother Tezcatlipoca (to the Maya,
it was between Hero Twins who go to the
underworld to overcome the gods of that
most feared realm).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Historians usually divide the era from 6001450 CE in Mesoamerica into two periods:
 The classical (ending around 900 CE)
 The post-classical (900-1450)
 The classical era in Mesoamerica occurred
several hundred years after the classical era
in Europe/Asia, reflecting the independent
development of the two hemispheres until
about 1450.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Classical civilizations include the Maya (3001200 CE) and the people of Teotihuacan
(300-850 CE).
 Post-classical civilizations include the Toltecs
and the Aztecs.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Classical Mesoamerica:
 The Olmec civilization disappeared
completely by about 300 BCE (no one really
knows why) but many of their practices and
beliefs were carried on by later civilizations.
 The earliest heirs of the Olmecs were the
Maya, who centered their society to the east
and south of Olmec settlements (Yucatan
Peninsula, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras,
El Salvador).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Often regarded as the “mother civilization” of
Mesoamerica, the Olmec produced the
earliest examples of sophisticated artwork
and their style was adopted by later peoples,
like the Maya and Aztec.
 The most famous Olmec artifacts are 17
colossal stone heads, presumed to have been
carved between 1200 BCE and 900 BCE out
of volcanic basalt.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 These heads, which range in height from 5
ft. to 11 ft. and weigh as much as 40 tons,
are generally thought to be portraits of
rulers.
 Even more amazing is that these heads are
up to 80 miles from the nearest stone
quarry and this civilization didn’t have pack
animals or the wheel.
 In some cases, the heads were even hoisted
up 150 ft to their final position.
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 Archeologists are still
trying to figure out the
Olmec religion, but it
seems to be based on
a jaguar-god.
 Rulers were also
believed to be relatives
of supernatural beings.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 They left behind
almost no known
written records (the
only ones found
were discovered by
accident in 2006)
and the high
humidity has caused
all human remains
to rot away.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Around the dawn of the Christian era the
brilliant and isolated civilization of the Maya
was taking shape.
 The Maya (often called the Greeks of the
New World) had a distinctive language and
the particular profile—sloping forehead,
prominent curving nose and full lips—that is
endlessly depicted on their ancient
monuments and is still common today
among their descendants.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The first permanent Maya villages appeared
during the 3rd century CE in the highlands of
Guatemala, an area of fertile soil.
 There they built a ceremonial center,
Kaminaljuyu, that dominated the
communities around it.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 By the 4th century CE, Kaminaljuyu fell under
the control of Teotihuacan, and the Maya
moved the center of their civilization to the
poorly drained Mesoamerican lowlands.
 From about 300 CE to 900 CE the Maya built
more than eighty large ceremonial centers in
the lowlands, all with temple-crowned
pyramids and palaces, painted in bright
colors.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Artist rendering of the Mayan city of Copan
(in Honduras):
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 These ceremonial centers had tens of
thousands of people, but most of the
populations were peasant villagers who
lived in settlements on the periphery of the
cities.
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 In the heavily jungled lowlands, the soil
quickly lost its fertility, so the Maya (like
other rainforest peoples), practiced slash
and burn agriculture.
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 Slash and burn agriculture would not have
been enough to support cities, so the Maya
built terraces that trapped silt carried by the
rivers, supported by irrigation and drainage
systems.
 These techniques boosted their agricultural
productivity, with Maya farmers raising
maize, cotton, and cacao (for chocolate) in
abundance to support their urban
populations of 30,000-80,000 people.
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 Mayan cities were primarily religious and
administrative centers, and trade seems to
have been a relatively minor part of Mayan
life.
 Mayan cities did not form an empire. There
is no evidence of a dominant capital.
 These cities were a loose federation bound
together by cultural similarities and the
shared interests of priests.
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 The power of the priests depended on
education and intellectual superiority
over their peasant subjects.
 They had books on bark paper (which
cannot be read).
 They had a numerical system, including
the concept of zero, hundreds of years
before the Europeans.
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 Through their astronomical observations,
the Maya accurately predicted the
movements of the sun, moon, and planet
Venus.
 They knew the length of the year,
including the final fractional day, with
NASA-like precision.
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 This is the famous sarcophagus lid of Pakal
the Great (the Mayan king of Palenque),
supposedly showing him in an astronaut suit
and space capsule:
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Their cities varied in size and layout, but all
had large pyramids with temples on top,
complexes of administrative buildings, houses
for the elite, a ritual ball court, and often a
series of altars and memorial pillars called
stelae.
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 Stelae (stone columns)
were built to
commemorate great
actions of Maya leaders
or to mark ceremonial
occasions, and they
were inscribed with
hieroglyphic script.
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 The numerical patterning of Mesoamerican
cosmology was regularly celebrated in their
architecture.
 Architects followed a template that was
based on the four cardinal points and three
levels of the universe: earth, heaven, and
the underworld.
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 North was associated with the celestial
realm, South was the way to the
underworld.
 East was the place of the rising sun and
West was the place of the sun’s descent
into darkness.
 Buildings were oriented based upon
these directions.
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 At the Mayan city of
Tikal, the famous
Temple of the Great
Jaguar contained 9
doors to represent
the nine layers of
the underworld and
the temple itself
had 9 levels.
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 The most famous Mayan pyramid (Chichen
Itza—Yucatan Peninsula), the Temple of the
Feathered Serpent (Kukulkan) has 9 levels
plus four staircases of 91 steps…when
added to the single continuous step at the
bottom it equals 365.
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 The Temple of Quetzcoatl was designed with
precise acoustics so that a crowd watching and
listening in the plaza beneath would have
been able to hear the words of a priest making
a ritual speech in praise of the gods or
celebrating the undying power of the state.
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 Even the steps were specially designed so
that when you stand before the pyramid
and clap, the sound made is like that of the
sacred quetzal bird.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeLwo
7E4sYM
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The architects of the Temple of
Quetzalcoatl also positioned the building so
that at the spring and autumnal equinoxes,
sunlight creates an undulating pattern of
shadow and light on the steps so that it
appears that Quetzalcoatl is moving.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0kOyGZ
xKh4
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 The Mayan Temple of the Masks at Kabah
had 260 masks.
 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20
12/07/120720-maya-temple-el-zotz-masksfaces-science-houston/
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Maya society had clearly delineated social
classes, with rulers and other members of
the elite serving both priestly and political
functions.
 There were soldiers, but they didn’t seem
to have any function within the
government.
 If there was a merchant class, it was a
humble one.
.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Kings were not considered divine, but
they communicated directly with
supernatural beings and deceased
ancestors through rituals in which they
drew blood from different parts of their
bodies and fell into hallucinogenic
trances.
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 They decorated their bodies with paint and
tattoos and wore elaborate costumes of
cotton, animal skins, and quetzal feathers.
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 Religion was central to
Maya life, with a
pantheon of gods
important to sustain
agriculture, and many
rituals included human
sacrifice.
 Most victims were
prisoners of war,
especially defeated
elites.
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 Captured commoner/peasants were more
likely to be used as part of a labor force
to construct public buildings and
irrigation and drainage systems.
 Priests had magical powers that gave
them access to the 13 layers of heaven
rising above the Earth and the nine levels
of Xibalba (Realm of Fright), a sinister
underworld (or Hell).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 If you were lucky enough to ascend to
an afterlife of heavenly ease, you would
spend eternity leisurely drinking
chocolate, shaded by the strong boughs
of the first tree.
 Only a select few were destined for
this…the great majority faced foul and
sadistic demons in the underworld.
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 The gods, like those
of Sumeria, were
believed to interfere
in human affairs, and
they possessed both
human and animal
traits, most
frequently those of
the jaguar.
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 Chaan Muan,
eighth-century
ruler of the Maya
city of Bonampak,
captures a victim
for sacrifice in a
jungle raid.
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 The Maya thought it important to please
the gods, who expected honor and
reverence from their human subjects.
 Bloodletting pleased the gods, so
sacrificial victims were often lacerated
before being decapitated in order to
produce more blood.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 By about 800 CE, most Maya had begun to
leave the cities, and within 100 years, most
cities had disappeared, consumed by the
jungle.
 No one really knows why but some theories
include: climate change, soil exhaustion,
foreign invasion, civil war, or epidemic
diseases.
 Perhaps there was some political or social
change that weakened the obedience of Maya
peasants to their priest-aristocrats.
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 Before the Maya were reaching their
peak, another civilization was developing
in the Mexican highlands to the west.
 The area was the site of several large
lakes fed by water from surrounding
mountains, and the earliest settlers
channeled the water into their fields to
produce an abundance of crops.
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 Their central city was a religious center
known as Teotihuacan (“Place of the Gods”),
which began to grow rapidly after about 200
BCE.
 Like the cities of the Olmecs and Maya,
Teotihuacan was a center of religious rituals
and government administration.
 Their monuments were in the pyramidal form
(found all over Central America).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Teotihuacan is 30 miles northeast of
Mexico City, and when constructed
between 200-700 CE, it covered over
seven square miles.
 It was planned by master architects who
wanted clean lines and long distances…
through the center of the city runs the
Avenue of the Dead, nearly two miles long
and lined with low, stone-faced structures.
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 The Avenue of the Dead
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 In Teotihuacan, the Pyramids of the Sun and
Moon are among the largest masonry
structures ever built.
 The Pyramid of the Moon.
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 The Pyramid of the Sun is 700 ft square
at the base and as high as a 20 story
building.
 It is built of sun-dried bricks and
sheathed in limestone.
 The smaller Pyramid of the Moon rises at
the northern end of the avenue, and at
its south end is the walled Citadel.
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 Pyramid of the Sun (picture from
Pyramid of the Moon). Both completed
by 250 CE.
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 Many scholars consider Teotihuacan to be
the first real city of the Western
Hemisphere (and the world’s 6th largest at
the time), with a population between 150200,000 people.
 Like the Maya, most of what we know
about these people comes from their art
and architecture since most written
records were lost when the city declined.
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 Teotihuacan seems to have been a
relatively peaceful place…soldiers and
weapons are not prominent in the city’s
art and the favorite gods were the
benevolent Tlaloc (God of Rain) and
Quetzalcoatl (God of Knowledge and
Civilization).
 The bloodthirsty gods that became
prominent in later times are notably
absent.
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 But this doesn’t mean human sacrifice
wasn’t practiced...one of Teotihuacan’s gods
was Xipe Totec.
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 The sacrificial victim, usually a young
woman, was skinned with an obsidian
knife and the skin was removed in one
piece. Then a priest put it on like a
garment and danced solemnly around an
altar.
 This ritual celebrated the coming of
spring, when nature puts on a new coat
of fresh vegetation.
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 A priest honoring Xipe Totec:
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 And like the Maya, priests were an
important part of the elite, for they kept
precise calendars to ensure crops were
planted at the right time.
 In contrast to Mayan cities, Teotihuacan
was a center of extensive trade and
commerce, with merchants trading their
products throughout Mesoamerica.
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 The city reached its peak around the 7th
century CE, and mysteriously collapsed by
about 750 CE.
 It political system is unknown, but the city’s
layout was so organized, there must have
been some kind of centralized planning.
 Some recently uncovered murals suggest the
city’s final decades were violent, as temples
and houses of the elites were burned down
or defaced.
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 After the decline of the Maya and
Teotihuacan, several regional states rose
in Mesoamerica, and their hallmark was
constant fighting (which is why death is
such a prevalent motif).
 A key change from the classical to postclassical period was a shift to more
military organization.
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 Their capital cities stood on well-defended
hills, and their art often focused on warriors.
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 The glory of Teotihuacan was not destined to
last forever and the city’s grandeur probably
contributed to its downfall.
 Its inhabitants laid waste to large areas of
countryside to manufacture the lime needed for
mortar and stucco used in Teotihuacan’s
buildings.
 This caused erosion and reduced the amount of
land available for agriculture.
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 When food was in short supply, it probably
didn’t take much to undermine the onceunchallengeable authority of Teotihuacan’s
priests/rulers.
 At some point in the 7th or 8th centuries,
nomads poured south into the Valley of
Mexico (probably driven by climatic changes
that made farming unsustainable).
 Teotihuacan was too weak to repel them.
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 The Toltecs, a group that migrated from
northwestern Mexico, were the first to
unify central Mexico again after the
people of Teotihuacan.
 Their capital was Tollan (‘the Place of the
Reeds’) near the modern city of Tula,
northwest of modern Mexico City, which
probably reached a population of about
60,000 between 950-1150 CE.
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 Like the people of Teotihuacan, the Toltecs
used the waters coming down from the
mountains to irrigate crops of maize, beans,
peppers, tomatoes, chilies, and cotton.
 The Toltecs created a centralized state
based on military power, and they
conquered lands from Tula south into
Central America, including many areas held
by the Maya.
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 Their militarism
appeared in their public
buildings and temples,
which were decorated
with representations of
warriors or with scenes
of human sacrifice.
 These stelae columns
held up the roof of a
temple.
 These are in Tula.
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 Their temples were also adorned with
gruesome chacmools—reclining stone figures
with a bowl on the stomach in which the
heart of a sacrificial victim was flung – and
also skull racks on which heads were
displayed.
.
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 A Toltec skull-rack (an idea later adopted
by the Aztec).
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 The Toltecs traded with distant regions,
including acquiring turquoise from the
southern U.S. and foods from throughout
central Mexico.
 To maintain their power over conquered
peoples, they built garrisons which kept
the peace and oversaw the collection of
tribute.
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 The Toltecs seemed to have two rulers
instead on one, which probably eventually
weakened their power.
 Their most famous ruler was Topiltzin, a
priest associated with the god Quetzalcoatl,
who was forced into exile in the east, “the
land of the rising sun.”
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 The exile of Topiltzin is one of
Mesoamerica’s most famous legends.
 He lost a power struggle with another
faction (warrior devotees of the war god
Tezcatlipoca) and when forced into exile, he
promised to return.
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 His return was so anticipated by the
Toltecs, and then the Aztecs, that when the
Spanish first arrived, the Aztecs believed
that Cortes was the exiled hero.
 After his exile, the Toltec state began to
decline, eventually to be replaced by the
Mexica, more commonly known as the
Aztecs.
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 Some legends blame the fall of the Toltec on
divine punishment against king Huemac II
(r. 994- ? ) who had fallen into wicked ways.
 His early years on the throne were said to be
exemplary as he was a pious worshipper of
the gods.
 But he was tempted into wrongdoing,
wickedness, and vice and it gripped his soul
so tightly that he could not find his way back
to virtue.
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 Legend has it that the provinces rebelled
against the wicked king and volcanoes
visible from Tula began to growl and
belch flames.
 When Huemac II ordered a great
sacrificial offering to the gods, a bloodchillingly awful portent was seen.
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 At the climax of the ceremony, priests bent
the chief victim (a high-ranking noble from a
rival city) over the sacrificial stone and
opened his chest cavity with the sacred flint
knife.
 But inside they could find no heart.
 In a panic, the priests looked in his chest
and found his veins dry and empty with no
precious blood that was supposed to spill
onto the stones of the temple pyramid.
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 Yet just a few moments before the man
had been walking and talking.
 Then a terrible stench arose from his body.
 The priests and people fled from the
temple in terror, but many were killed in an
epidemic of foul wasting diseases
seemingly caused by the stench of the
bloodless death.
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 Huemac encountered divine helpers from
the rain god and begged to be spared and
be allowed to maintain his position of
power and wealth.
 Enraged at his selfishness, the divinities
declared six years of plagues on the Toltec
which included crop-killing frosts followed
by summer droughts, then destructive
floods and wild storms.
 The Toltec were then plagued with
thousands of toads and locusts.
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 Northern nomads known as the Chichimec
(‘Sons of the Dog’) attacked Tula.
 For three years, Tula was able to hold out
(they had a defense force that included a
company of women), but their defenses
eventually broke down and the Toltecs
fled.
 The Chichimecs, and then the Mexica
(Aztecs), flooded across the land, and
eventually rebuilt Toltec cities.
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 The Aztecs viewed the Toltecs with great
reverence, mythologizing them as tall,
peerless warriors, ruthless conquerors,
pioneers of the finest arts and sciences,
developers of the Aztec calendar and year
count, and writers of just and lasting laws.
 According to Aztec legend, they built their
main city, Tenochtitlan (tay nawch tee
TLAN – “Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus”)
in a place identified by an eagle perched
on a pear cactus with a snake in its mouth.
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 Tenochtitlan grew to be one of the largest
cities in the world, with as many as 300,000
people at its height (double the size of
Europe’s largest city at the time—Paris).
 The city was built on several small islands
in Lake Texcoco, connected to the mainland
by large causeways (canals).
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 Tenochtitlan.
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 To the Spanish first seeing the city, they
described it as far grander than anything
they had ever seen.
 Like the people of Teotihuacan before
them, the Aztec drained swamps,
constructed impressive irrigation works
and terraces, and built chinampas, or
floating gardens.
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 Chinampas were an
ingenious adaptation
that consisted of
narrow artificial
islands made by
heaping lake
muck/debris on beds
of reeds anchored to
the shore.
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 Chinampas made it possible to sustain
urban life by boosting agricultural
production.
 The Aztecs also imposed a tribute system
on conquered peoples, who had to
contribute maize, beans, and other foods
to support Tenochtitlan.
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 Like the Toltecs before them, the Aztecs
rose to power through military might,
with tough fighting skills and a tendency
towards aggressive expansion.
 By the early 15th century, they emerged
as an independent power that dominated
their allies.
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 The ruling elite of the Aztecs was made up
of militaristic aristocrats, whose lives
centered on conquest.
 At the top was a semi-divine king, who was
selected by election from among the male
members of the ruling family.
 Below him were his officials, who had
earned their positions through heroic
military exploits and ruled conquered
people in the provinces like feudal lords.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Next was a class of warriors who were
recruited from ordinary freemen, and
proved themselves in battle by taking at
least four prisoners for sacrifice.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Most Aztecs were ordinary free people
who tilled the fields, built the buildings
and roads, etc
 At the bottom were serfs, whose rights
and duties were similar to those of
medieval European serfs, and slaves who
were captives or debtors.
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 Aztec society was
patriarchal, but women
received high honor for
bearing warrior sons,
and the spirits of
women who died in
childbirth were
believed to help the
sun god in his journey
through the sky each
day.
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 The Aztecs also had a large and powerful
group of priests.
 They served as advisors to the king and his
officials, and they conducted the elaborate
religious rituals that were central to Aztec
society.
 The chief god, Huitzilopochtli (god of war),
ruled from the position of the sun at noon,
and in order to keep him in his proper
place in the sky, the Aztecs believed he
must be fed a steady diet of human blood.
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 This blood came from frequent human
sacrifices on altars that lined the main
streets of Tenochtitlan.
 Aztec blood rituals were particularly
messy, with thousands of victims taken
as war captives or tribute just for that
purpose.
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 When the Emperor Ahuitzotl consecrated
the temple of Huitzilopochtli in 1490, at
least 20,000 (some accounts say 80,000)
prisoners of war were sacrificed.
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 The Emperor and his close relatives (who
were also priests) took turns plunging
the knife into victims for as long as their
strength lasted; then they turned the
duty over to lesser hierarchs.
 For four days the lines of victims inched
forward towards the sacrificial stone,
now surrounded by ponds of blood.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The bodies were piled up in heaps and
their skulls overflowed the skull rack rising
in front of the pyramid.
 It was said that the center of the city
smelled for weeks from rotting flesh and
blood.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 A special part of the ritual was cutting the
heart from the live victims chest, and the
heart was then eaten by the Aztec nobility.
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 Priests used large obsidian (stone)
knives.
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 Sacrifices were carried out in front of
large crowds that included the leaders
from enemy and subject states, sending
the clear message of the power of the
Aztec elite.
 The political message was equally clear:
rebellion, deviancy, and opposition were
very dangerous.
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 To the Aztecs, and many of their captives,
these scenes of sacrifice did not seem
entirely horrible.
 Death itself was not much feared, and a
ritual death at the hands of priests was
considered an honor.
 In the case of soldiers captured on the
battlefield, it assured them of a glorious
after-life.
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 One of the most important Aztec religious
ceremonies of the year was Panquetzaliztli,
held to honor Huitzilopochtli, the divine
leader of the Aztecs.
 Panquetzaliztli was held after the harvest
(usually in October), when the nation
readied itself for war.
 Many captive warriors or slaves purchased
by merchants at the market became known
as “bathed slaves.”
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 These slaves were picked for their good
looks and musical/dancing ability, because
in the build-up to the festival, they had to
entertain guests at magnificent feasts
thrown by the merchants for the nobles.
 Nine days before Panquetzaliztli, the slaves
were washed in a spring sacred to
Huitzilopochtli and they began the religious
preparation for their own sacrifice.
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 On the day of the festival, the slaves were led
four times around the Great Temple, then in
the company of the merchant-donor, they
climbed the temple’s steep steps to the shrine
of Huitzilopochtli at the top.
 There a priest dressed as Huitzilopochtli
dispatched them.
 The merchant was awarded their dead bodies,
and afterwards he would take them home to be
consumed with maize in a cannibalistic
banquet.
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 Each of the Aztec months (there were 20)
was sacred to a particular deity, and at the
end of each month, victims dressed as that
month’s god were respectfully slaughtered.
 The victims, known as ixiptla (in the god’s
image), became the gods they honored
and were treated with the greatest
reverence and ceremony.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 They were said to hold the fire of the god
in their bodies, and when they were killed,
this divine flame was set free to take
residence in the body of a victim marked
for sacrifice in a year’s time.
 Probably the most remarkable ceremony
was the one to honor Tezcatlipoca (the god
of war and the twin and “dark” brother to
Quetzalcoatl).
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 Tezcatlipoca:
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Each year, at the close of the month holy to
Tezcatlipoca (in May), a young man of
intelligence and good looks was chosen to
represent the god and for a year was
treated as his embodiment.
 By day, he lived in the god’s temple, where
he learned to play the flute and dance steps
sacred to Tezcatlipoca.

The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 At night he was sent out into the city,
accompanied by a guard of eight warriors.
 In every quarter he visited, he played
tunes on his flute, shaking the rattles tied
to his legs and arms as he danced to signal
his coming.
 The people of Tenochtitlan would bow
before him and bring out sick children to
be blessed and cured by the passing god.
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 As the year drew to an end, the emperor
would enter the temple and dress the young
man in the costume sacred to the god.
 Then the god-victim was given four young
wives, embodiments of significant
goddesses.
 With five days to go until his sacrifice, the
emperor went into seclusion and the empire
was ruled by the young soon-to-be-victim.
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 On the final day of the month, the youth
was led with full ritual to Tezcatlipoca’s
shrine on the Great Pyramid.
 There he said good-bye to his four wives
and was sacrificed.
 His body was taken away, cooked, and
served to the emperor and prominent nobles
and military elites.
 Also present was the young man chosen to
carry Tezcatlipoca’s flame in his body for the
next 20 Aztec months before he was to be
sacrificed.
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 The Aztecs were very superstitious and
events like solar eclipses terrified them.
 At such times, they made sacrifices of their
own people to sustain the sun and life on
Earth.
 People with fair complexions were said to
be full of light and were sacrificed to
strengthen the sun in its struggle against
darkness.
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 The Aztecs also held frequent sacrifices
in the name of the rain god (Tlaloc),
which often required the blood of young
children.
 As they were led to their deaths, the
children would weep and the onlookers
understood the tears that fell would
become the rain they prayed for.
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 One of the most
grizzly rituals was
to the god Xipe
Totec (one of the
four primary gods,
born before the
dawn of time).
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 Associated with the east and the rising
sun, he was the god of new shoots in the
spring and of the first growth of the maize
plant.
 Xipe Totec was honored in the second
month of the Aztec year (March 6-25)
which marked the start of the growing
season.
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 At the festival’s beginning, prisoners of
war dressed as Xipe Totec were tied to a
sacrificial stone and forced to defend
themselves with mock weapons against
fully armed warriors.
 The sacrificial victims were shot to death
with arrows so the flow of their blood
could symbolically represent the flow of
rain on to the fields to nourish the seeds.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 After their death, the victims were flayed
from head to toe. Priests then wore their
skins over their own bodies for the entire
month.
 This gruesome practice symbolized both the
earth taking on a new “skin” each year
(new foliage), and planted seeds splitting at
germination.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 By 1500, great inequalities in wealth and
privilege characterized Aztec society.
 Aztec kings and aristocrats legitimized
their power by creating elaborate rituals
and ceremonies to distinguish themselves
from the commoners.
 Rich dress and jewelry was one way the
elite were set apart from the commoners.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The emperor ate his meals behind a gilded
screen shielded from spectators; when he
traveled, he was carried in a litter on the
shoulders of noblemen.
 Wherever he walked, the ground was
covered with cloth so his feet would not
touch it.
 Young nobles were taught the proper way
to hold and smell bouquets of flowers.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Commoners lived in
small houses and ate a
limited diet of staple
foods (usually with little
animal protein).
 There was no ventilation
so the house soon filled
with smoke from
cooking. In this single
room, stuffy and smoky,
the whole family cooked,
ate, and slept.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The noble elites lived in large, wellconstructed two-story houses and
consumed a diet rich in animal protein and
flavored by condiments and expensive
imports like chocolate from the Mayan
regions to the south.
 Even in marriage customs the two groups
were different: the commoners were
monogamous and the nobles were
polygamous.
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 In Aztec society, a specialized class of
merchants (called pochteca) controlled
long-distance trade.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Since they didn’t have draft animals
(horses/oxen) or wheeled vehicles, their
commerce was dominated by lightweight
and valuable products like gold, jewels,
feathers and feathered garments, cacao,
obsidian knives, and animal skins.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Merchants also acted as eyes and ears for
the nobles, giving them political and
military intelligence from distant regions.
 Since they operated outside the Aztec
military, merchant expeditions were armed
and often had to defend themselves against
potential enemies.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Aztec commerce was
handled without money
or credit.
 Barter was facilitated by
using cacao, quills filled
with gold, and cotton
cloth as standard units of
value to compensate for
differences in the value
of bartered goods.
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 The market in Tenochtitlan met every fifth
day, and it is estimated that 40,000-50,000
merchants swarmed into the city, rowing
their canoes across Lake Texcoco.
 The Spanish described the market as being
under tight government control.
 There were officers who kept the peace,
collected taxes, checked the accuracy of
weights and measures, and there was a
court of 12 judges who sat to decide cases
immediately.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Archeologists have found consistent
evidence that all Mesoamerican groups—
from the Olmec to the Aztecs—enjoyed ball
games, with most of the civilizations
building large ball courts in their cities
(these are the world’s oldest known ball
games).
 The game was played with a solid rubber
ball on slope-sided courts.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The rules of the game are unknown, but
appear to be similar to volleyball or
racquetball, and the object was to keep the
ball in play.
 Some archeologists believe the ball
represented the movement of the sun in the
sky.
 The ball varied in size over time according to
the version of the game played, and players
could strike the ball with their hips, elbows,
forearms, rackets, and bats.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Usually the game was played casually for
simple recreation, and was sometimes played
by women and children.
 Some versions had ritual aspects, featuring
human sacrifice (to the losers).
 Some of the rubber balls were even fashioned
to look like human heads.
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 Beginning in 1502 Moctezuma II ruled
over a great empire but he and his
people were troubled by bad omens.
 In 1509, ten years before the arrival of
the Spanish, a comet appeared in the
skies over Lake Texcoco.
 Strange lights shone in the night sky.
 A soothsayer foretold that terrible events
lay in the future, including the
destruction of their empire.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 In 1519 Moctezuma was nearly 40 years
old and had skillfully ruled for 17 years.
 But recently his personality had changed;
gone was his ability in war and diplomacy,
replaced with uncertainty accompanied
with spells of brooding.
 He secluded himself in his palace and was
rarely seen in public, consulting with
priests and soothsayers, or meditating
alone.
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 Moctezuma was particularly concerned
about the exiled Toplitzin/Quetzalcoatl,
the giver of knowledge and all good things
who had sailed into the eastern sea and
promised to return.
 That had been more than 500 years
earlier, and the year the god said he’d
return was almost at hand.
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 Then news came of strange men riding in
white-winged ships on the eastern sea.
 When the news of Cortes and the Spanish
landing in Mexico at Veracruz reached
Moctezuma (actually the 3rd exploratory trip
since 1517), he seems to have been
uncertain whether to welcome them with
reverence as gods, or with violence, as
invaders.
 Cortes had arrived with 553 men and 16
horses.
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 Along the coast before arriving at Veracruz,
Cortes acquired an invaluable asset: an
extremely intelligent native girl who not only
knew the local dialects but also the Aztec
language.
 She learned Spanish so easily and quickly that
she became Cortes’ interpreter, closest adviser
(and mistress). She also became a Christian.
 Cortes named her Dona Marina (or Malinche).
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 First, Moctezuma sent supplies along with
magnificent offerings including large discs of
gold and silver representing the sun and
moon, and ritual costumes that had been
worn by performers impersonating the gods in
religious ceremonies.
 Some of the food he sent had been
ceremonially doused with the blood of a
sacrificial victim as was the Aztec custom.
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 When Cortes rejected the Aztec envoys,
Moctezuma changed his mind and had
sorcerers cast spells on the Spanish to keep
them away.
 However, the Spanish proved resistant to
Aztec magic and Cortes moved his troops
towards the Aztec capital.
 The Spanish allied themselves with Aztec
enemies and pushed towards Tenochtitlan.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 When the Spanish force and its allies came
to Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma met Cortes atop
a palanquin carried by four nobles and
greeted him with the utmost respect.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 A conquistador said of Moctezuma II: “many
great lords walked before the great
Montezuma sweeping the ground on which he
was to tread and laying down cloaks so that
his feet should not touch the earth. Not one
of these great chieftains dared look him in the
face”
 When the Spaniards arrived, Moctezuma II
controlled an area nearly twice the size of
Pennsylvania with over 11 million people.
 He believed himself to be “master of the
world.”
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Moctezuma gave Cortes a necklace of
snail shells and shrimps fashioned from
solid gold and a quetzal feather
headdress, and in return was presented
a string of Venetian glass beads.
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 Then in a fateful
moment, Moctezuma
invited the Spanish
into his capital.
 The Spanish were
quartered in
Moctezuma’s palace
near the heart of the
city.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Through Dona Marina, Cortes and
Moctezuma discussed their respective
countries, and Cortes tried (but failed) to
convert the Emperor to Christianity.
 An uneasy friendship developed between
the two men.
 Cortes and his men were given a tour of
Tenochtitlan, where they saw the bloody
remnants of sacrifices.
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 But Cortes didn’t trust the unpredictable
Moctezuma.
 Fearing attempts on their lives, Cortes
and 30 Spanish soldiers acted swiftly and
with audacity by capturing Moctezuma in
his own palace and holding him prisoner.
 Both sides then prepared for war.
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 When war came, Moctezuma climbed to
the palace roof and called for calm, but his
warriors jeered him and then in a storm of
arrows and stones, severely injured their
emperor.
 He later died from these injuries (or
secretly strangled by the Spanish—
according to differing accounts).
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 The Spaniards, led by Cortes, stormed the
Great Pyramid, set fire to the shrines, and
ripped down sacred Aztec idols.
 Soon, the once invincible city was sacked
and on fire. The siege would last 93 days
(of often brutal and bloody fighting).
 By the time it ended, 2/3 of the Spaniards
had been killed or dragged off for sacrifice.
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 But Cortes was able to maneuver his
remaining troops across the lake and into
allied territory.
 From there, Cortes was able to encourage
revolt among those oppressed by the
Aztecs.
 About this time Cortes received 600 wellarmed Spanish reinforcements (including
40 cavalrymen) from Cuba.
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 At the end of December 1520, Cortes set
out again to take Tenochtitlan.
 This time he entered the city with over
100,000 Indian allies seeking revenge on
their Aztec oppressors.
 The city was already being ravaged by
smallpox (it had killed Moctezuma’s
successor, his brother) and thousands of
Aztecs.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Cortes had Tenochtitlan’s aqueducts and
chinampas destroyed (no fresh water or
food) and access to the city cut off.
 Weakened by hunger and disease, the
Aztec warriors fought on to the bitter end
as their corpses piled up in the streets and
clogged the canals.
 The fighting stopped when the last
emperor, Moctezuma’s 25 year old nephew
Cuauhtemoc, was captured.
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 Andean Civilizations:
 The first Peruvian civilization is known as
the Chavin, after its most impressive
center at Chavin de Huantar on the high
western slope of the Andes.
 It was established about 1000 BCE (about
the same time as the Olmec in Mexico),
and the two cultures share a worship of
jaguar gods.
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 There, in a narrow valley 10,200 ft above
sea level, stands an enormous stone building
called the Castillo, nearly 250 feet square.
 Inside is a maze of small rooms and narrow
corridors, three stories of them, connected
by stairways and ramps.
 Probably no one ever lived in the Castillo …it
was a house for the gods, not mortals.
 In one of its dim rooms a god still stands: a
tall stone idol with the fanged grin of a manjaguar.
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 The Castillo:
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 The Chavin culture seems to have ended
abruptly sometime between 500-100 BCE.
 Several hundred miles to the south on the
arid Paracas Peninsula are the 2,000 year
old burial grounds of a people whose
textiles are considered exquisite, even
today.
 At one site called Paracas Necropolis, 429
seated mummies were unearthed (most
likely important chieftains and priests).
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Each mummy was wrapped in several
layers of beautifully woven cloth.
 The innermost wrapping was a shroud of
plain white cotton, in one case 13 ft wide
and 84 ft long.
 Then came layers of smaller colored cloths
and garments of alpaca and vicuna wool.
 Tucked at intervals were food for the dead
man, clothing, weapons, gold ornaments,
and pottery.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The stitches of the embroidery are minute
and by some miracle of prescientific
chemistry, the dyes are almost as vivid
today as when the cloth was made.
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 Examples of Paracas embroidery:
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Over the centuries the Paracas culture
gradually merged with the Nazca culture,
centered in the Ica and Nazca Valleys 100
miles to the south.
 The Nazca continued the Paracas tradition
of fine cloth production but really
distinguished themselves with beautiful
polished pottery.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Nazca pottery:
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The Nazca region is most famous for its
riddles of the desert…the Nazca lines.
 Believed to be some of South America’s
earliest works of engineering, the Nazca
lines are only visible from high in the air.
 Many are huge geometrical figures whose
ruler-straight lines and angles could hardly
be improved upon today.
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 Since some of the lines relate to the
summer and winter solstices, scholars
think they may have served the Nazcas as
vast astronomical calendars to help
determine date for planting crops or
readying irrigation ditches to catch the
flow of seasonal rivers.
 Some of the shapes are believed to be
offerings, meant to be seen only by the
Peruvian’s sky-dwelling gods.
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 The Nazca lines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bd
O-K3vLa8
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Several hundred miles to the north, a
new group of people called the Mochicas
or Moche (after the Moche River)
emerged.
 The Moche built a society that thrived
from about 100-900 CE in a 2,500 sq
mile area of modern day Peru.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The Moche built an extensive irrigation
system from rivers coming out of the
mountains, and cultivated maize, beans,
manioc, and sweet potatoes in the lower
coastal areas and coca in the higher
elevations.
 Moche society was highly stratified, with
wealth and power concentrated in the
hands of priests and military leaders.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 The wealthy adorned themselves with rich
clothing, jewelry, and tall headdresses.
 Because the Moche had no written records, all
we know about them comes from
archaeological evidence, especially from a
recently excavated tomb that revealed
masterfully crafted ceramics, gold ornaments,
jewels, and textiles.
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 The Moche people developed an art form
that includes some of the finest sculpture in
the history of pottery.
 The range of designs makes these objects
remarkable not only as art, but also as a
record of the civilization from which they
came.
 The extensive number of objects produced,
suggests that the civilization was an
extremely populous one, in which power and
wealth were major goals.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Examples of Moche pottery.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Moche architecture featured flat-topped
pyramids and ramped platforms with
courtyards and plazas.
 Near Trujillo in the Moche River Valley,
there still exists two giant structures, known
as the Pyramid of the Sun (Huaca del Sol - a
stepped pyramid) and the Pyramid of the
Moon (Huaca de la Luna - a terraced
platform with large rooms and courtyards).
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 The Moche Pyramid of the Moon.
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 The Pyramid of the Sun:
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 Both temples were built of adobe bricks
which will last virtually forever on the
rainless coast of Peru.
 The 60 ft high base of the Temple of the
Sun covers 8 acres and has stepped
pyramid above that rises over 75 ft.
 The Temple of the Moon was built over an
ancient burial ground, and the desert
around it was littered with sea shells,
believed to be temple offerings.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Much of what is known about the Moche has
been deciphered from complex illustrations,
known as fine-line paintings that appear on
thousands of ceramic vessels.
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 What these drawings show, appears to
be highly stylized ceremonial combat in
which warriors fought one-on-one for the
purpose of producing a few vanquished
prisoners.
 These losers were needed to fill a central
role in the sacrifice ceremony that
followed battle.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Drawing after drawing shows how the
prisoners were first stripped of clothing and
battle equipment, and then, naked and
leashed around the neck with a rope, brought
back to a ceremonial center.
 There the prisoners’ throats were cut, their
blood consumed by the ceremony
participants, and finally their bodies
dismembered (and in some cases, flayed).
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 The Moche god of decapitation.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Although a warrior society, the Moche did
have a taste for luxury.
 Moche tombs were filled with some of the
most splendid pottery and metalwork of the
Central Andean Area.
 Moche ceramics are the best known of
ancient Peruvian artifacts, and are among the
finest ever known.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Their portrait-head effigy
pots are especially
notable for realistically
depicting human features
and portraying emotion.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Like so many other ancient peoples of
the Americas, the decline of the Moche
isn’t well understood, although it appears
to have coincided with a succession of
natural disasters, including an
earthquake, flood, then thirty years of
rain followed by thirty years of drought.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 Other people occupied the Andes region
after the Moche, but the most famous,
most powerful, and best-organized
civilization was the Inca, who formed a
vast imperial state during the 15th
century.
The Americas on the Eve of Invasion
 When the Inca began their spectacular
sweep along the Andes, Peruvian
civilizations had existed for over 2,000
years.
 All material technologies (cloth, metal,
pottery, and architectural) were well
advanced but there were several key
items common to the Old World that
didn’t exist in Peru.
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 As in Middle America, there was no
knowledge of the wheel—or if there was, it
wasn’t put to practical use.
 There was no written language, only a
system of keeping records with knotted
strings (quipus).
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 There was also no money or convenient
medium of exchange.
 It is amazing that Peruvian culture
developed without these things, usually
thought indispensable to the growth of
civilization.
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 From humble beginnings as one tribe
among several in the Cuzco Valley, the
Inca began around the year 1100 CE.
 But by 1400, the Inca only controlled
areas surrounding Cuzco.
 The legend of their origin has several
variations, but here is the best known:
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 Four brothers and fours sisters, all
children of the Sun God, came out of a
cave about 18 miles southwest of Cuzco,
and from two nearby caves came a
handful of followers.
 These were the Inca, a word originally
identified with a certain group of clans
and that later referred to the emperor.
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 According to the
legend, Manco Capac,
leader of the group,
felt threatened by
one of his brothers
who was so strong,
the stones he threw
with his sling blasted
ravines into the hills.
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 Manco Capac sent his brother back into
the cave to fetch a sacred llama, but
Capac sent in another man who walled
up his brother in the cave (where he
remains to this day).
 The two other brothers eliminated
themselves by obligingly turning
themselves into sacred stones.
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 That left Manco Capac as the first Inca
ruler.
 He had already married one of his sisters,
Mama Occlo, who bore Sinchi Roca,
second of the Inca line.
 Like the Aztecs, this little band under
Manco Capac started out as landless
wanderers but they quickly overcame this
handicap.
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 Moving toward the fertile Valley of Cuzco,
they probed the ground with a golden staff
to test the depth of the soil, and when they
found a spot they considered good
farmland, they decided to settle down.
 During the battle to drive out the
established inhabitants, Mama Huaco,
another one of Manco Capac’s sisters killed
an opponent with a stone, tore out his
lungs and inflated them. Terrified by this
horrible spectacle, the others fled in a
panic.
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 During the first 200 years
after the Children of the
Sun and their followers
emerged from the caves,
the Inca remained a small
and not very powerful
group. This changed
under their ninth ruler, the
Inca Pachacuti (r. 143871).
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 Under Pachacuti the expansion of the
Inca was explosive…wherever their
armies went, they were victorious.
 As they evolved as a civilization, Inca
armies became well trained, well
equipped, extremely disciplined, and
warriors were trained to fight on both
mountain and coastal terrain.
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 Known as fierce and fearless warriors,
the Inca reputation for battle and the
seeming inevitability of conquest caused
many kingdoms to surrender without a
fight.
 But Pachacuti’s military campaigns were
not mere forays in search of treasure.
 They were part of a deliberate plan to
unite the diverse lands and peoples of
Peru.
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 To establish a united and stable empire in
the patchwork that was Peru, Pachacuti
and his advisors developed long-range
plans that were masterstrokes of
statecraft.
 Though Pachacuti’s armies fought
ferocious battles when necessary, the Inca
usually accomplished their goals through
diplomacy.
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 Before attacking a state the Inca sent
ambassadors to explain the considerable
advantages of joining his empire.
 Behind its lines were peace and plenty,
which would be enjoyed by aristocrats and
the common people alike.
 The local rulers would not be
displaced/killed; they would continue to
rule under Inca guidance.
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 Their sons were taken to Cuzco as house
captives, where they were indoctrinated
with Inca values; their daughters were
also taken and indoctrinated—some
would be offered as pawns in marriages
of alliance with other rulers and others
would be sacrificed.
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 Pachacuti and his successors were careful
to avoid inflicting unnecessary hardship on
subjugated peoples.
 For example, they never moved sea-level
people to the high mountains where they
would have suffered from the cold and
altitude.
 Skilled Inca engineers often created
irrigation systems and roads that bettered
the material condition of the displaced
groups.
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 Local religions would be respected as long
as it made no trouble.
 On the other hand, the ambassadors made
it clear that resistance was futile.
 Local leaders would be slaughtered along
with their families or dragged off to Cuzco
where they would be imprisoned in
dungeons filled with fierce animals or
poisonous snakes.
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 The one exception to their success was
when the Inca attempted to expand
eastward into the Amazon rainforest, but
on unfamiliar terrain and facing an enemy
that fought unconventionally, the Inca
didn’t have success.
 The products of the rainforest were
obtainable through barter so the Inca
concentrated their efforts in the mountains
and along the coast.
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 The Inca ruled all the people they
considered “civilized” (the Amazonians they
considered subhuman and not “civilized”).
 One of the most effective unifying devices
employed by Pachacuti and later Inca rulers
was the extension of Quechua, the language
of the Cuzco region.
 Just as English spread with the expanding
British Empire, Quechua marched with the
Inca armies and was used as the formal way
to communicate throughout the Empire.
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 As Pachacuti and his successors embarked
on continuous campaigns to subdue the
“known world,” an Inca prophesy taught
them that they were destined to rule, and
within 100 years they forged the largest
empire ever created in the Americas.
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 The Incan Empire stretched from the
modern borders of Ecuador and
Colombia to more than half-way down
the coast of modern Chile– 2600 miles
(roughly the distance from Boston to LA
or Madrid to Moscow).
 The empire was long and narrow (only
400 miles at its widest).
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 The Incan Empire:
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 The genius of the Inca Empire was its
administrative organization.
 Inca civil and economic control was
simple in concept and followed
developments that had evolved over the
past 3000 years of Pre-Hispanic Andean
civilization.
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 For example, there was an incremental
structure of civic control based on
decimal multiples of households, with
each higher-ranking official being in
charge of ten times more households.
 Like the Incan concept of the cosmos,
this structure gave everyone a clear line
of responsibility from one level to the
next.
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 The lowest level of government divided
their citizens into groups of 10 or
sometimes 50 families.
 The male head of one family was
appointed foreman of his group.
 Ten foremen reported to a higher official,
usually a hereditary curaca (or chieftain)
who was responsible for 100 families.
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 Still higher ranking curaca were in charge of
1,000 or 10,000 families.
 These officials were usually natives of the
locality, and if their province entered the
Empire without too much resistance, they
were chiefs who had ruled before the Inca
took over.
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 Socially, the Inca formalized practices that
were ingrained in Andean peoples since
ancient times—the idea of reciprocal
obligations and of cooperation with one’s kin
group of relatives, both blood and by
marriage, known as the ayllu.
 An ayllu was an enlarged family or several
families claiming interrelationship.
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 The head of the allyu was known as the
Mallku (literally translates to condor but
usually means prince).
 The allyu were self-sustaining units that
would educate their own children and
farm or trade for all the food they ate,
except in cases of disaster (when they
would rely on the Incan storehouse
system).
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 Even though the Inca did not have a
monetary system (no money), there
were taxes and obligations to the state,
called the mit’a which amounted to the
same thing.
 Every individual owed labor to the Inca
state, which through the mit’a was
fulfilled by the household rather than by
each individual.
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 This system left the household intact and
able to fulfill its obligations at home while
a family member fulfilled the mit’a service.
 Quotas of produce (agricultural or textile)
were collected into storehouses for
redistribution according to need.
 In this way the Inca ensured that all their
subjects had the necessities of life and so
they largely prevented rebellions.
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 Some rebellions did occur, and they were
dealt with quickly.
 Rebellious groups were moved wholesale to
distant provinces, where in unfamiliar
territory and among strangers, they were
outcasts and isolated from their secure
social structure.
 Sometimes, loyal groups were moved into
potentially rebellious areas to help keep
control.
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 The Inca expanded the amount of land
producing food/cotton by building new
terraced fields and rejuvenating old ones.
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 They built storehouses for food and cotton
in the provincial capitals and linked them by
a road system that made it easy to move
goods and armies throughout the empire.
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 The efficiency of Incan agriculture provided
a good food supply for the Inca and subject
peoples, and their roomy storehouses,
brimming with surpluses, were insurance
against future crop failures.
 Orphans, the old and the sick were fed
when necessary out of public stocks.
 The Inca followed the Marxist adage:
“From each according to his abilities, to
each according to his needs.”
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 The Inca were noted
road builders, with
roads varying from
fully constructed
paved roads to narrow
paths.
 Road widths varied
from 3ft to over 80ft.
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 The Inca were masters at engineering
roads according to the terrain.
 Roads through settled districts might be
walled and lined with shade trees.
 Swamps were crossed with viaducts,
mountain roads crossed ravines via
suspension bridges, and some peaks had
tunnels going through them.
 In some places, travelers were carried
across ravines in baskets on cables.
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 This is the last Inca suspension bridge in
existence. Many were still in use through
the 19th century.
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 It is estimated that the Inca road system
might have had over 25,000 miles.
 The Inca also constructed over 10,000 tambos
(way stations) along their road system for
pilgrims/merchants, spaced at intervals of a
day’s journey apart.
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 Inca roads were a means of control, meant
to impress subject peoples with Inca power.
 They also allowed the Inca army to move
quickly throughout the empire.
 To travel on some roads required royal
permission.
 Imperial communications throughout the
empire was conducted by a system of
runners.
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 About every mile along major roads a hut
was built to shelter a chasqui messenger.
 As a runner approached a hut, he called
out and the waiting messenger joined him
as he ran.
 The message was relayed orally and
perhaps a quipu was passed, after which
the fresh messenger ran as fast as he
could to the next hut.
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 Messages could be relayed
150 miles a day this way.
 Each runner served a 15
day rotation and service
was part of the mit’a labor
obligation.
 Messages had to be
correct…the penalty was
death for passing an
incorrect message.
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 Incan architecture had a simple floor plan
(rectangular) no matter the size or purpose
of the building.
 The standardization of form fulfilled the
goals of practicality, aesthetics, and a sense
of “equality” among Inca citizens.
 Nails were unknown, roofs were thatched,
and the Inca were renown for the fineness
of their masonry work.
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 Three notable Inca
architectural features
were inclined walls
(wider at the bottom
than top), no interior
room divisions, and
trapezoidal doorways.
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 Incan architecture (especially their stone
masonry) astonished the Spanish
conquistadors, who could not understand
how they put together such enormous
stones without mortar or large draft
animals.
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 In the 1460’s emperor Pachacuti began
rebuilding Qosqo (Cuzco). At the heart
of his planned city was the plaza of
Awkaypata, 210 yds x 185 yds, carpeted
entirely in white sand carried in from the
Pacific and raked daily by the city’s
workers.
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 Awkaypata was the center of the empire (and
the center of the cosmos).
 From this great plaza radiated four highways
that marked the four asymmetrical sectors of
the empire (Tawantinsuyu “Land of the Four
Quarters”).
 The four quarters reflected the heavenly
order of the Milky Way, the vast celestial river
of Andean cosmology.
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 To defend their capital at Cuzco and to provide
emergency refuge for the city’s entire population,
Inca engineers constructed Sacsahuaman fortress,
whose huge zig-zagging stone walls were broken
into 66 sharply projecting angles so that defending
spearmen could catch attackers in a withering
crossfire.
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 Gigantic bulwarks guard Cuzco’s
Sacsahuaman citadel. Most of the stone was
quarried on the spot, but the project, for
which 20,000 workers were conscripted from
the provinces, still took 90 years to finish.
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 The most famous Inca stone is this…the 12
cornered block in the wall on Hatun
Rumiyoc Street (Cuzco).
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 50 miles NW of Cuzco, nearly 8000ft up,
lie the ruins of the ceremonial “lost city”
of the Inca, Machu Picchu (means “Old
Peak”).
 Revered as a sacred place and invisible
from below, Machu Picchu was
completely self-contained, with enough
terraced land to feed the population and
watered by natural springs.
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 Machu Picchu, the fabled Inca “lost city.”
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 The cloud shrouded ruins have palaces,
baths, temples, storage rooms and some
150 houses, all in a remarkable state of
preservation.
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 Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons
or more and are so precisely sculpted and
fitted that the mortarless joints won’t allow
the insertion of even a thin knife blade.
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 It is believed that one of Machu Picchu's
primary functions was that of astronomical
observatory.
 The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching
Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a
precise indicator of the date of the two
equinoxes and other significant celestial
periods.
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 The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu,
even though they knew it existed.
 The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse
and was abandoned some forty years after
the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. It was
rediscovered until 1911.
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMI
0bMwq_Q
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 By the early 1500’s, the Inca ruled all the
“civilized” peoples of South America.
 The twelfth emperor, Huayna Capac (14931526) ruled a stable, and expanding,
empire.
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 He went to the northern provinces to
quell an outbreak of rebellion (in today’s
Ecuador) when he died of a mysterious
disease (smallpox).
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 The Spanish had introduced smallpox
into Mesoamerica and it quickly spread
south, devastating all natives in its path
(since they had no resistance to it).
 The disease also killed his chosen heir.
 The deaths of the emperor and his heir
immediately destabilized the empire.
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 During Huayna Capac’s illness, traders
from the northern regions reported the
appearance of bearded strangers in
strange ships.
 These men (the Spanish) who were
immune to the disease caused Huayna
Capac to believe his disease was divine
wrath and had been prophesized.
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 General religious belief among Andean
peoples stressed the arbitrary nature and
power of the gods, and the death of the
emperor and his heir by a mysterious
disease, and the ensuring civil war, must
have been seen as divine retribution for
something they had done.
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 Without a living designated heir, the
imperial household was thrown into
confusion.
 Huayna Capac had over 20 sons, so
members of the imperial family split into
factions lining up behind the two major
contenders, Huascar and Atahualpa.
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 Huascar was the governor of Cuzco and
controlled the largest part of the Empire (a
son to Huanyna’s sister-wife), and his half
brother Atahaulpa controlled the Kingdom of
Quito (who was his son by his favorite
concubine).
 Huascar
and Atahualpa:
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 Huascar seized the throne and initially
Atahualpa supported his claim, but
rumors spread that Atahualpa was
plotting a coup so Huascar declared him
an enemy, a traitor, and an outlaw.
 Civil war ensued, but Atahualpa (the
more able leader) had with him in the
north the bulk of his father’s veteran
soldiers.
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 The civil war lasted six years with
Atahualpa eventually victorious when his
armies took Huascar prisoner and they
captured Cuzco (Huascar would
eventually be murdered).
 This civil war ended just before the
Spaniards landed in Peru.
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 With the imperial armies engaged with
fighting each other, recently conquered
peoples took back their own power.
 But most of the common people weren’t
really affected, they continued to live as
they had for centuries.
 Smallpox seems to have been more of a
concern to the common people than the
civil war.
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 There had actually been a prophesy that
Huayna Capac was to be the last Inca and
that the demise of the empire would come
with the arrival of powerful foreigners.
 Incan priests saw omens of doom when a
full moon had three halos (which they said
represented the death of Inti, the sun god;
war among Capac’s descendents; and the
break-up of the empire).
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 Many historians believe that by 1526 the
empire was so big, the Inca couldn’t
control it and it was already beginning to
fall apart.
 Even though Atahualpa won the civil war
(after six years of turmoil) and controlled
the army, he was disliked and distrusted
by many Inca nobles.
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 Trying to consolidate his
power when he occupied
Cuzco, he ordered the
provincial governors and
chief administrators to
attend him in the capital.
 Since many were of
Huascar’s lineage or loyal
to Huascar, Atahualpa
ordered them put to death.
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 He then ordered the burning of the mummy
of his grandfather (the predecessor of
Huayna Capac—Tupac Yupanqui-the 11th
Inca emperor) which the Inca considered a
major sacrilegious offense.
 Atahualpa now claimed his lineage was the
only legitimate one to the imperial throne.
 To the Inca, it must have seemed that
Huayna Capac’s prophesy of their doom was
coming true.
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 The conquest of Peru by the Spanish
(Pizarro) required three expeditions over
nine years.
 The first (1524) ended in failure because of
storms, the second (1526-7) was recalled by
Spanish officials after Pizarro sailed to the
Incan city of Tumbez.
 The hospitable people of Tumbez welcomed
the Spaniards and showed them their
temple, which was decorated with sheets of
gold.
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 Under strict orders from Pizarro, the
Spaniards pretended not to notice the gold
and they treated the Peruvians with
consideration and respect.
 The time for conquest and plunder had not
come (yet).
 But Pizarro had a glimpse of the Inca at their
peak of order and prosperity.
 Had he attacked now, the Spanish would
have met overwhelming forces that were
organized and determined.
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 It was Pizarro’s good fortune that the
weakness of his forces compelled him to
delay his assault on Peru until the Inca
were distracted and weakened by civil
war.
 So Pizarro returned to Spain in 1528 to
visit King Charles V (Luther and de Las
Casas fame). He showed the king gold
drinking cups acquired at Tumbez as well
as live llama and two young Inca he was
training as interpreters.
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 Charles V was impressed and gave Pizarro a
royal charter to conquer this “land of gold,”
making Pizarro Governor and Captain-General
of the lands he had yet to win.
 When he returned to Panama in the spring of
1531, he set sail for Tumbez with three ships,
180 men, and 27 horses.
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 Instead of heading directly for Tumbez,
Pizarro landed well north and began
pirate raids along the coast which met
little resistance.
 The Inca had abandoned their frontier
because of their civil war.
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 Pizarro was familiar of the exploits of
Cortes and thought the disarray of the
Inca offered an opportunity to use
Indians against Indians, as Cortes had
done.
 He miscalculated for no Peruvians helped
him attack the Inca.
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 Before he reached Tumbez, Pizarro was
reinforced by 130 additional men and
horses from Panama.
 When he reached Tumbez, he found the city
almost deserted and largely destroyed.
 As the Spanish went down the coast, whole
valleys were without men of military age, all
of them conscripted by Atahualpa’s armies.
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 Learning that Atahualpa was camped near
Cajamarca in the Andes, Pizarro left a
garrison on the coast and turned eastward
into the mountains, following a narrow but
well-paved road.
 No Inca opposed him; the fortresses that
watched the road were empty and silent,
the bridges across mountain chasms
undestroyed, the narrow passes unguarded.
 Pizarro had less than 200 men.
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 Up into the mountains they went, the
horses having to be led .
 They were met by a high-ranking Inca
noble envoy from Atahualpa who said
the Inca wanted to be friends with the
Spanish and that Atahualpa was awaiting
them in peace at Cajamarca.
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 Several weeks later, the Spanish came to an
oval shaped valley high in the Andes that
had the small city of Cajamarca at the far
end.
 A few miles from the city, clouds of vapor
rose from the hot springs that was a favorite
“health resort” of the Inca (where Atahualpa
was camped).
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 Pizarro and his men marched into
Cajamarca and saw it deserted, thinking it
was a trap.
 Once Pizarro secured the town, he sent
Hernando de Soto (later the “discoverer” of
the Mississippi River) and 15 horsemen to
visit the Inca.
 Inca soldiers and noblemen, adorned in
gleaming golden ornaments, surrounded
Atahualpa, who sat on a low stool.
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 Even though Atahualpa had never seen a
horse or the bright steel armor the
strangers wore, he gave no hint that he was
impressed.
 The Spaniards rode up to him, bowed
politely without dismounting and announced
(through an interpreter) that their
commander invited the emperor to visit him
at his quarters.
 At first Atahualpa did not reply; then he
smiled.
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 “Tell your commander that I am keeping a
fast that will end tomorrow. Then I will visit
him with my chieftains.”
 De Soto noticed that the emperor was
fascinated by the horses so digging his spurs
into his, he gave a brilliant display of
horsemanship, dashing away at a gallop,
rearing, wheeling.
 Then he rode full speed at Atahualpa,
stopping the horse so close that flecks of
foam fell on the emperor’s clothing.
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 Not a tremor of expression crossed
Atahualpa’s face.
 Deeply affected by this display of fortitude
(and also the hundreds of well-disciplined
soldiers), the Spanish returned to Pizarro
in low spirits.
 Atahualpa was obviously no weakling like
Moctezuma, who was paralyzed by
religious doubts and fear.
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 De Soto’s report caused panic in the
Spanish camp, but Pizarro was pleased,
for only desperate men would be willing
to risk the bold scheme he proposed…he
convinced his men that their only hope of
survival was to capture Atahualpa within
the sight of his powerful army.
 Anything less would mean the
destruction of the tiny band of Spaniards.
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 At dawn, Pizarro positioned his men around
the town’s plaza, and when the signal was
given (the firing of a rifle), his men were to
emerge and slaughter the emperor’s
followers and seize the emperor.
 Shortly after midday the emperor’s
procession moved slowly along the city’s
avenue…first came attendants to sweep
the ground followed by nobles whose
golden jewelry blazed in the sun.
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 Then came Atahualpa riding in a golden
litter carried on the shoulders of his
highest-ranking noblemen.
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 A half-mile from the city’s plaza, Pizarro
relayed a message to Atahualpa that he
was providing entertainment and he
expected the emperor to join him for
dinner.
 The emperor replied that he accepted the
invitation and that he would leave most of
his warriors behind, and those he brought
would be unarmed.
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 To Pizarro, this was a sign that God was
on the side of the Spanish.
 Historians believe that it never occurred
to Atahualpa that the Spaniards might
attack him…the power of the Inca was so
absolute that any such action was
unthinkable.
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 When Atahualpa entered the plaza no
Spaniard was in sight. “Where are the
strangers?” he said.
 Pizarro’s chaplain came forward and after a
long discourse in Christian theology (that
the Inca didn’t understand) he told
Atahualpa that he must change his religion
and become a vassal of Charles V of Spain.
 Atahualpa was not pleased.
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 Atahualpa said “I will be no man’s vassal.
I am greater than any prince on earth.
As for my religion, I will not change it.
You say your God was put to death, but
mine” –and he pointed to the sun—”still
lives.”
 The priest handed Atahualpa his Bible
and the emperor threw it down.
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 The priest screamed at Pizarro “While we are
arguing with this arrogant dog the fields are
filling with Indians. Set on him! I absolve
you.”
 Pizarro waved a white scarf, a gun thundered,
and the slaughter began.
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 Atahualpa’s retainers desperately crowded
around the royal litter but they had no
weapons.
 They clung to the horses so Atahualpa
wouldn’t be injured until the Spaniards cut
them away with their swords.
 Fearing that the emperor might be injured,
Pizarro shouted that any soldier that harmed
him would be put to death.
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 Pizarro was slightly cut on the hand (by
one of his own men) and that was the only
Spanish injury that day.
 Atahualpa was captured and dragged to a
nearby building.
 Out of sight, the Inca then ceased all
resistance to the Spanish.
 Panic spread through the Inca warriors left
behind and they fled.
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 The massacre had lasted little more than
half an hour, but at least 2,000—some
reports say 10,000—Inca were killed,
including the key nobles which were the
Empire’s administrative core.
 When all was quiet, Pizarro invited
Atahualpa to dinner as promised.
 The banquet was held near the plaza in a
building still carpeted with the dead.
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 Pizarro sat next to his captive who showed
remarkable composure.
 “It is the way of war,” the Emperor
remarked with dignity, “to conquer or be
conquered.”
 Pizarro ordered brought to Cajamarca
Atahualpa’s court, including his favorite
concubines, his cooks and other servants,
and young girls who waited on him hand
and foot.
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 Even though he was a prisoner, Atahualpa
continued to live as the Emperor (including
dining off of solid gold plates)…but all
orders given in his name were from
Pizarro.
 The people of the Empire, accustomed to
obeying the Emperor’s every wish did not
question the stranger through whom they
believed their ruler was speaking.
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 For the next nine months (while Pizarro
waited for reinforcements), Atahualpa lived
in captivity.
 He noticed the extraordinary effect gold had
on the Spaniards and this gave him an idea
to escape captivity.
 To Atahualpa, gold was a decorative
material; since the Inca didn’t use money,
he couldn’t understand its importance as a
medium of exchange…but he saw that the
Spanish craved it above all else.
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 One day, Atahualpa and Pizarro were in a
building and the Emperor offered to
cover the floor in gold if Pizarro released
him.
 The Spaniards present were
dumbfounded by this proposal and
couldn’t speak, so Atahualpa increased
his offer.
 He stood on his tiptoes, reached as high
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 Pizarro also demanded an
adjoining room be filled
twice with silver.
 Atahualpa agreed, asked
for two months to
accomplish the task, and
ordered the collection of
gold and silver objects
from around the empire.
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 To the Inca, gold and silver represented
the essence of the sun and the moon.
 The importance of objects lay in the
imagery of the gods they represented.
 To the Spanish, their interest was purely
monetary…they cared neither for Incan
artistry nor for the religious value a piece
carried.
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 Incan gold work.
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 Fearing that once the rooms were filled with
treasure the Inca would attack the Spanish,
Pizarro sent three of his men to Cuzco (600
miles away) to determine the state of the
Inca.
 On Atahualpa’s orders, they were to be
carried on litters by troops of bearers, and
during their journey they were greeted with
reverence, not hostility.
 They reported back that Peru was peaceful.
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 When at last Pizarro declared the ransom
paid, he ordered that all the gold be melted
down to ingots except for a few objects of
artistic interest.
 Charles V was to receive 20% of the gold,
the remainder divided up between Pizarro
and his men.
 Atahualpa then demanded his freedom.
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 But the Spaniards, fearing for their safety if
the Emperor lived, put him on trial charged
with idolatry, polygamy, and incestuous
marriage.
 He was also charged with usurping the
throne and having his half-brother
(Huascar) murdered.
 He was pronounced guilty and condemned
to death by burning at the stake.
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 A stake was set up in the city plaza,
Atahualpa was bound to it, and bundles of
sticks were set around.
 The priest approached Atahualpa with his
crucifix and told him that if he converted to
Christianity, he would be strangled instead of
burned alive.
 Atahualpa agreed, was immediately baptized
under the name Juan de Atahualpa, then
strangled by a cord around his neck.
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 So died the last of the ruling Incan
emperors, and the Empire died with him.
 It shattered into helpless fragments which
passively accepted Spanish control.
 To the common people, the Spaniards were
merely a new class of rulers, just as remote
and probably no worse than the Inca had
been.
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 Death in the Andean world was not
considered the end of existence; it was the
next state of being after life on earth.
 Archeological evidence of elite and common
burials shows that elaborate preparations
were made, almost throughout life, for this
next state of being.
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 This Andean worldview applied to all
things, humans, animals, and plants—and
to the Earth itself as a ‘living’ entity.
 Archeologists believe the Inca (and other
Andean peoples) looked at life like the
cycles of a plant…progressing from
newborn, through infanthood, puberty,
young adulthood, old age, and death,
enduring as a mummy.
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 The mummified
body was
likened to a
dried pod from
which seeds of
new life
dropped.
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 The Inca (and Andean cultures) believed that
the essence of a dead person ultimately went
to a final resting.
 The physical body was only a vessel for this
life—the person’s ‘vital force’ or soul, found its
way to pacarina.
 Pacarina was the place of origin of one’s
ancestors and the ultimate source of rebirth.
 It could be a rock, a tree, cave, lake or spring–
a magical shelter from the difficult world.
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 Inca mummies were kept very much as a
part of the lives of the living.
 They were visited regularly and brought out
on ritual occasions.
 They were consulted for advice, honored
with recitals of poetry and stories, and even
‘fed’ on ritual occasions.
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 Almost all Inca rituals included sacrifice,
usually of llamas or guinea pigs.
 Brown llamas were sacrificed to Viracocha
(the Creator); white llamas to Inti (the sun
God); and dappled to Illapa (the Thunder
God).
 Coronations, war, or natural disasters
involved human sacrifice to solicit the gods
or to make them happy.
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 A special child sacrifice—the capacocha—
was preceded by a ritual procession along a
sacred ceque line (sacred pathway) in
Cuzco.
 Children were sacrificed because they were
considered the “purest” beings.
 The capacocha happened after the death of
the emperor (Inka) or during a famine (or
other disaster).
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 The victims were almost always provincial
(non-Inca) children aged 6-15 who were
physically perfect.
 After the victim had been well fed for
months or even years, so as to offer him or
her to Viracocha well satisfied, he/she was
clubbed or strangled, and had the throat slit
or the heart cut out and offered to Viracocha
while still beating. Some were left to die of
exposure.
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 As the journey was often extremely long and
arduous, especially for the younger victims,
coca leaves were fed to them to aid in their
breathing so as to allow them to reach the
burial site alive.
 Upon reaching the burial site, the children
were given an intoxicating drink to minimize
pain, fear, and resistance, then killed.
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 The child’s parents participated and
considered the choice of their child to be an
honor.
 Capacocha victims were sanctified in Cuzco
(they had an audience with the emperor and
a feast was held in their honor) before
walking back to their province to be
sacrificed.
 They were dressed in fine clothes and
jewelry.
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 The mummy of a sacrificed child.
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 All Andean peoples worshipped mountain
gods, but only the Inca went high into
the mountains to kill and bury sacrificial
victims.
 Special sacrifices were made of children,
who were marched barefoot to the
mountain-top where they were sacrificed
(or sometimes left there to freeze).
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 This girl and two
other children were
left on a mountaintop
to succumb to the
cold as offerings to
the gods, according to
the archaeologists
who found their
mummified remains in
Argentina in 1999.
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 The Incan economic system functioned
completely without money.
 This lack of currency didn’t surprise the
Spanish…much of Europe did without money
until the 18th century.
 But the Inca didn’t even have markets.
 Everything that was built, farmed, herded,
produced, or mined was owned by the
emperor but most was given over for public
consumption.
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 This became known as Incan socialism.
 Even though we “moderns” think this system
was inherently inefficient, it produced
surpluses, not want.
 The Spanish were stunned to find warehouses
overflowing with grain, untouched cloth, and
supplies.
 The Inca had “eradicated” hunger in their
empire (and not many empires in history can
claim that feat).
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 Fun stuff: The emperor was carried on a
golden litter—the emperor (known as the
Inka)—did not walk in public.
 He would appear with such majesty that
“people would leave the road and allow him
to pass…that they adored and worshipped
him by pulling out their eyebrows and
eyelashes.”
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 Minions collected and stored every object he
touched, food waste included, to ensure that
no lesser persons could “profane these
objects with their touch.”
 The ground was too dirty to receive the
Inka’s saliva so he always spat into the hand
of a courtier.
 The courtier wiped the spittle with a special
cloth and stored it for safekeeping.
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 Once a year, everything touched by the
Inka—clothing, food, garbage, bedding,
saliva—was ceremonially burned.
 The 10th Inka (Thupa (Topa) Inka) started
the custom of marrying his sister (Thupa
might have actually married two of his
sisters)
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 Even though this was genetically unsound,
(and very creepy), to the Inca it made
perfect sense…only close relatives of the
Inka were seen of sufficient purity to
produce his heir.
 The Inka’s sister-wive(s) would go with him
on military campaigns, along with a few
hundred or a thousand of his “subordinate”
wives.
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 The massive scale of Thupa’s domestic
arrangements didn’t seem to impede his
army’s progress…by his death in 1493, he
had doubled the size of the empire.
 In terms of area conquered during his
lifetime, he was in the league of Alexander
the Great and Chenghis Khan.
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 Trans-Pacific Riddles:
 Just how isolated was ancient America?
Recently archeologists have noted several
resemblances between East Asian and
American artifacts and art styles. One
theory, which has created a lot of
controversy among scholars, is that Asian
peoples, in voyages eastward, may have
made contributions to New World cultures.
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 Eastern Asia
(Shang Dynasty China)
Feline divinity 18-12th
Century BCE
Shang and Olmec priests
also built similar earthen
ceremonial platforms,
and used the same kind
of small reflecting
mirrors in religious
rituals.
 Ancient America
(Chavin)
 Feline divinity 10-5th
Century BCE
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 Lion-headed thrones are shown in
representations of deities in India and of
Maya dignitaries. The Maya shared other
ritual expressions with HinduBuddhist culture, including stepped
temple pyramids, doorways with serpent
columns and balustrades, and sacred
tree forms.
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 Eastern Asia
 Ancient America
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 Wheeled animals made in India may
have inspired similar figures found in
Mexican tombs; the wheel was not
otherwise used in ancient America,
possibly because there were no strong
draft animals.
 Certain types of looms and potterymaking techniques were also shared by
Asians and early Americans.